The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11. Francke Kuno
you find the door?"
Ottomar wished to exclaim, "Give me thy hand!" but he did not venture to do so, and went toward the door saying, "Good-night!" – which had a sound of resentment, because he had almost broken into tears. His father stood at the door of his bedroom. "One thing more! I forgot to say that I reserve the right to take the next step myself. As you have so long hesitated to take the initiative, you will have to grant me this favor. I shall keep you informed, of course. I beg you to take no further step without my knowledge. We must act in conjunction, now that we understand each other."
He had said the last words with a melancholy smile that cut Ottomar to the heart. He could bear it no longer, and rushed out of the room.
The General, too, already had his hand on the latch; but as Ottomar had now vanished he drew it back, took the lamp to the writing-desk, a drawer of which he unlocked, and drew out, where, among other ornaments of little value belonging to his deceased wife and mother, he kept also the iron rings of his father and mother from the Wars of the Liberation.
He took the rings.
"Another time has come," he muttered, "not a better one! Whither, alas! have they vanished? And your piety, your fidelity to duty, your modest simplicity, your holy resignation? I have honestly endeavored to emulate you, to be a worthy son of a race which knew no other glory than the bravery of its men and the virtue of its women. What have I done that it should be visited on me?"
He kissed the rings and laid them back into the box, and from the several miniatures on ivory took that of a beautiful brown-haired, brown-eyed boy of perhaps six years.
He looked at it for a long time, motionless.
"The family of Werben will die out with him, and – he was my favorite. Perhaps I am to be punished because I was unspeakably proud of him prematurely."
[Old Grollmann, the servant, finds a similar letter directed to Uncle Ernst, and delivers it. Uncle Ernst reads it, drinks a bottle of wine, and falls asleep, after having rung for his afternoon coffee. He is found in this condition by Grollmann. Reinhold has been casting longing glances toward the Werben house over the wall. The General calls to speak with Uncle Ernst about the letter.
The General gives Uncle Ernst a brief story of his life and his social point of view, so far as they touch the family of von Werben, disclosing his aristocratic attitude. Uncle Ernst replies that he has no family history to relate, but gives a brief sketch of his own life, recalling vividly the incident in which he spared the General before the barricade, and was taken captive by him in return, and shut up in Spandau. It is a struggle between the aristocrat and the democrat of '48; a sullen silence prevails between the two men. The General finally asks, in the name of Ottomar, for the hand of Ferdinande. Uncle Ernst starts back in amazement.]
The night had had no terrors and the morning no gloom for Ferdinande. In her soul it was bright daylight for the first time in many months – yes, as she thought, for the first time since she knew what a passionate, proud, imperious heart throbbed in her bosom. They had told her so, so often – in earlier years her mother, later her aunt, her girl friends, all – that it would some time be her undoing, and that pride goes before a fall; and she had always answered with resentment: "Then I will be undone, I will fall, if happiness is to be had only as the niggardly reward of humility, which always writhes in the dust before Fate, and sings hymns of thanks because the wheels of grim Envy only passed over it but did not crush it! I am not a Justus, I am not a Cilli!"
And she had been unhappy even in the hours when enthusiastic artists, Justus' friends, had worshipped, in extravagant words, the splendid blooming beauty of the young girl; when these men praised and aided her talents, and told her that she was on the right path to becoming an artist at last – that she was an artist, a true artist. She did not believe them; and, if she were a real artist – there were much greater ones! Even Justus' hand could reach so much higher and farther than hers; he plucked fruits with a smile and apparently without effort for which she had to strive with unprecedented efforts and which would ever remain unattainable to her, as she had secretly confessed to herself.
She had expressed her misgivings to that great French painter upon whom her beauty had made such an overwhelming impression. He had evaded her with polite smiles and words; then he finally told her seriously: "Mademoiselle, there is only one supreme happiness for woman – that is love; and she has only one gift of genius in which no man can equal her – that again is love." – The word had crushed her; her art life was thus a childish dream, and love! – Yes, she knew that she could love, and boundlessly! But her eye was yet to see the man who could kindle this love to the heavenly flame, and woe to her if she found him! He would not understand her love, not comprehend, and most certainly not be able to return it; would shrink back, perhaps, from its glow, and she would be more unhappy than before.
And had not this dismal foreboding already been most sadly fulfilled? Had she not felt herself unspeakably unhappy in her love for him who had met her as if the Immortals had sent him, as if he were himself an Immortal? Had she not declared countless times in writhing despair, with tears in her eyes and bitter scorn, that he did not comprehend her love, did not understand it – would never comprehend or understand it? Had she not seen clearly that he shrank back, shuddered – not before the perils which threatened along the dark way of love – he was as bold as any other and more agile – but before love itself, before all-powerful but insatiate love, love demanding everything!
So she had felt even yesterday – even the moment after the blissful one, when she felt and returned his first kiss! And today! Today she smiled, with tears of joy, at her dejection. Today, in her imagination, she begged her lover's pardon for all the harshness and bitterness which, in thought and expression, she had entertained toward him, but now, with a thousand glowing kisses pressed upon his fair forehead, his loving eyes, his sweet mouth, would never again think, never again express!
She had wished to work, to put the last touches on her "Woman with the Sickle." Her hand had been as awkward and helpless as in the period of her first apprenticeship, and it had occurred to her, not without a shudder, that she had sworn not to finish the work. It was a fortunate oath, though she knew it not. What should she do with this hopeless figure of jealous vengeance? How foolish this whole elaborate apparatus for her work appeared – this room with high ceiling, these easels, these mallets, these rasps, these modeling tools, these coats-of-arms, hands, feet, these heads, these busts, after the originals of the Masters, her own sketches, outlines, finished works – childish gropings with bandaged eyes after a happiness not to be found here – to be found only in love, the one true original talent of woman – her talent which she felt was her only one, that outshone everything which men had hitherto felt and called love!
She could not endure the room this morning; now her studio had become too small for her. She went out into the garden, and passed along the walks between the foliage, under the trees, from whose rustling boughs drops of rain from the night before fell down upon her. How often the bright sunshine and the blue sky had offended her, seeming to mock her pain! She looked up triumphantly to the gray canopy of clouds, which moved slowly and darkly over her head; why did she need the sunshine and the light – she, in whose heart all was pure light and brightness! The drizzling mist which now began to fall would only cool a bit the inner fire that threatened to consume her! Moving clouds and drizzling mist, rustling trees and bushes, the damp dark earth itself – it was all strangely beautiful in the reflection of her love!
She went in again and seated herself at the place where he had kissed her, and dreamed on, while in the next room they hammered and knocked and alternately chatted and whistled. – She dreamed that her dream had the power to bring him back, who now slowly and gently opened the door and – it was only a dream – came up to her with a happy smile on his sweet lips, and a bright gleam in his dark eyes, till suddenly the smile vanished from his lips and only his eyes still gleamed – no longer with that fervid glow, but with the dismal melancholy penetration of her father's eyes. And now it was not only her father's eyes; it became more and more – her father, great God!
She had started out of her dream, but sank back into her seat and grew rigid again. She had seen, with half-opened eyes, from the look in his eyes and the letter which he held in his hand, why he had come. So in half-waking, confused, passionate words, she told him. He